


Brunch and Break Your Legs

by ImJaebabie



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Blind Date, M/M, Meet-Cute, Office, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25502017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImJaebabie/pseuds/ImJaebabie
Summary: He definitely had never seen this face before. Cute though."Sorry, have we met?" Johnny asked, hoping he hadn't been drunk or something.The guy blanched slightly. "No, but I'm pretty sure we're supposed to? I'm Mark Lee."
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 71
Kudos: 445





	Brunch and Break Your Legs

**Author's Note:**

> a haha 🤪

Normally Johnny wouldn't take his own car, wouldn't bother with having to hunt down street parking when he could just hop a bus and walk a bit to meet Yuta and Taeyong for brunch. _Normally_ being a few minutes late wouldn't matter, but abnormally they had been downright annoyingly insistent that he be on time on this day in particular. 

So he clicked the lock on his key, listening for the pleasant _beep_ before strolling across the quaint boulevard separating him from the restaurant.

The door front he approached sported painted glass and a classy style; a French bistro, or maybe Italian. Johnny honestly couldn't recall, knowing only it was one of his friends' favored places to meet up on a late Saturday morning, and that the coffee was good. With a name like _Bar Leisure_ he had half expected it to be either a lounge or an upscale gym, the first time they invited him there. Instead he found himself eating eggs benedict and brioche. 

He scanned the facade and the outdoor seating that hugged its side on the wide pavement, sectioned off by a wrought iron fencing interspersed with several vibrant planters. Only a few people sat in view; a couple at the table in the far corner, feeding each other bites of quiche, and a younger guy by himself nearer to Johnny, drinking an orange juice and sitting very straight like he didn't feel entirely comfortable. But no Yuta, and no Taeyong.

Johnny didn't want to be standing in the sun like this, and the lack of apparent presence of his friends had him sighing and digging his phone from his pocket. He stepped to the side, out of foot traffic, and leaned to half-sit on the plaster of the flower planter making up the corner point of the fencing, keeping the restaurant tables to his back.

"Nakamoto," Johnny said, the moment his friend answered, "where are you."

_"Exactly where I should be."_

"I hope that means at an inside table, secretly pouring whiskey into your coffee."

_"John I have never been, and would never be that crass. Please. No, I mean I'm--"_

"Excuse me?"

Johnny blinked behind his sunglasses. The voice had not come from his phone, and certainly not from himself. No one passed on his open left side, but then something tapped carefully at his right shoulder. 

"Hold on, Yuta," he muttered into the phone, turning his head and tilting down to look over his sunglasses. The nervous guy, the one by himself, was reaching up and tapping his shoulder from where he sat, round eyes looking widely at Johnny.

A strange urge to tell the guy he didn't bite suddenly struck him, but Johnny ignored it.

"Yes?"

"Um," said the guy, retracting his hand and curling his fingers around the tabletop instead, "you're Johnny, right?"

Why...did this stranger know his name? Johnny stared at him, trying to determine if he'd ever seen this face before. Round eyes, small mouth, a lot of cheekbone. Small nose too, with a sort of endearing hint of crook at the bridge. Permanently surprised eyebrows, one half-hidden under black hair, styled back but for a curl coming down on the right side. Hmm. Yes. Thinking back...

He definitely had never seen this face before. Cute though.

"Sorry, have we met?" Johnny asked, hoping he hadn't been drunk or something.

The guy blanched slightly. "No, but I'm pretty sure we're supposed to? I'm Mark Lee." 

Johnny nodded, waiting for comprehension to sink in as he held his phone to his shoulder, Yuta hopefully still on the line and about to tell him he was waiting inside with Taeyong. Comprehension did not occur.

"Yuta and Taeyong told me you'd meet me here?"

Huh. _Huh._ Interesting.

With a calm breath, Johnny smiled politely at the...Mark Lee, and held up a finger. "Of course, _right._ Yes. Would you give me just _one_ moment?"

Mark Lee nodded several times very fast, his eyes serious. "Yeah! Of course man, take your time. Sorry for interrupting your call. I'll wait."

"Great, thank you." Johnny smiled a little harder before pushing away from the planter and taking three long, forcibly casual strides away from the guy's table. Once he felt the distance was safe, he raised the phone to his ear again.

_"Now Johnny, I know what you're going to say--"_

It was Taeyong, which didn't surprise Johnny in the slightest. "Oh, is that right? Let me guess, you're both at home, aren't you." 

Silence from the other end of the line.

"Hm. So you're wherever you are, and I'm here at _Bar Pretentious,_ and so is this...small, innocent boy. But why, Taeyong. Why am I here? I don't want to be here, Taeyong Lee. You forced me."

Taeyong huffed into the phone. _"Well that's rude. We haven't seen you in weeks, so we invited you out for brunch. How is that forcing you?"_

"Taeyong, neither of you are here, and I was looking forward to taking my one morning off to be dead to the world in complete, utter unconsciousness. But you insisted I be here, where, may I remind you, _neither of you are._ So _why_ is there a..." Johnny glanced back at the boy at the table, who gave him the world's smallest, nicest little wave. He forced a smile and a wave in return, then turned away to glower at a nearby mailbox he imagined was Taeyong,"...a Mark Lee? Here. Knowing my name?"

_"Well that would be your date."_

Johnny's breath hissed out through his teeth. The late spring sun beat down on his head already, and he had only one cup of coffee in his system so far, which was simply not enough to bolster him through a surprise blind date. "Taeyong," he said, trying to remain calm-ish, "I do not want to be on a date." 

_"See, we think you do."_

"No."

_"Johnny when was the last date you were on? Hmm? Do not tell me you met someone at a bar at a work function that is not the same."_

"This is irrelevant."

_"No it isn't. You need this. You may have escaped working in the same office as us every day but you haven't escaped our well-intentioned meddling. Now go have a nice brunch with the world's cutest, sweetest boy. You're going to love him."_

"I'm going to tell him this was a misunderstanding and that he can go home, is what I'm going to do," Johnny said, his voice just the peaceful side of threatening. "I'll pay for his juice or whatever, obviously. But you're paying me back. Goodbye."

He nearly managed to hang up, but Yuta got the phone first, breathing an eery, _"John Suh if you make Mark Lee cry, or even disappointed, I will break both your legs. In multiple places. With expediency."_

"Jesus Christ, Yuta. The boy can handle a cancelled date. He's an adult! I think. He is an adult right?"

 _"He is an adult, what do you take us for? And he's perfect and he deserves to be taken on a very nice, pleasant date, and treated like he's special. Which is what_ you _are going to do."_

"Yuta."

_"You are keeping him waiting and that is rude. Go date the boy, Johnny. If you do otherwise, broken legs. Expediently."_

The line dropped, and Johnny stared briefly at his phone. Incredibly unfortunately for himself, he actually did think Yuta might hurt him if he cancelled this surprise date. Maybe not actually break his legs, but probably punch him, hard, and Johnny wasn't super keen for that. 

Then his stomach growled, and Johnny sighed. Anyway, he had to eat.

Turning back, Johnny fixed a nice smile to his face and returned to where Mark Lee sat, still waiting. As Johnny approached, Mark's face opened into the tiniest, barest hopeful expression, a hint of smile and lifted eyebrows. 

Hm.

Johnny was fairly certain he was supposed to go inside the restaurant, inform them he was meeting someone, and walk around to the door that opened to the patio seating. So he ignored all of that and calmly stepped over the fence, which didn't quite reach his hip anyway, before taking the seat opposite Mark, who looked reasonably surprised and blinked a few times.

"Sorry about that," said Johnny, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair and reaching to fiddle with the napkin-wrapped utensils, then thumb at the menu. "I didn't mean to keep you waiting."

Mark shook his head. "No dude, it's totally fine! You've got things going on, I get it. I have nothing but time." 

This concerned Johnny somewhat, as he didn't know what Yuta and Taeyong had told this young man to expect for this...date. He sincerely hoped it was a meal and nothing more, probably. He could maybe stomach a stroll through town if he was forced. Mark was nice to look at, at least.

"Anyway," continued Mark, "it's cool to like, actually meet you? Yuta and Taeyong talk about you a lot so I feel like I kinda know you already, haha."

"Oh...that makes sense, I suppose." Which meant Mark spent significant time around them. Johnny wondered where.

"Yeah! I mean, you guys all started the company together, so talking about you is obviously gonna happen, but like you come up a lot, and I work with them as you know so--"

It clicked. They'd hired him, once Johnny left. Of course, the company needed new blood to keep growing, and sure, this guy seemed enthusiastic. Probably just what they needed. Johnny nodded slowly, mouthing an "ah." "Ok, you work with them. Got it. Pieces are falling into place, now."

Suddenly, Mark stilled, his previous chipper attitude dissipating. "Oh. You...didn't know that. Ok. Yeah. I guess that's not super important. Taeyong probably first would've told you that I actually have the same degree you did in school--"

"Oh really?" asked Johnny, intrigued. Most people didn't do Journalism and then start a business, so it surprised him that they hired yet another one after Johnny left. He leaned an elbow on the table, interested. "How come you didn't follow that career path? You seem bright."

He did seem bright, but Mark somehow looked even more surprised, in the sad way. "They didn't...tell you that, either?"

"Um."

A waitress chose that moment to pause at their table, politely asking if they were ready to order. Mark blinked at his menu like he'd forgotten it was there, and Johnny realized he hadn't even opened his. He asked if she could give them a few more minutes.

Once she'd gone, Mark looked up and slapped Johnny with the most pitiful, disappointed look Johnny had ever witnessed in his twenty-six years of life. Good god. No wonder Yuta threatened to break his legs.

"They didn't tell you about me at all, did they." Mark said, small. 

Johnny felt like he'd been sucker punched. But also, that he couldn't lie. "No," he said, "they didn't." 

Mark nodded at the table. "You didn't know I'd be here, did you?"

"I did not."

"Yeah. Damn." 

In that moment, Johnny found that he also, surprisingly, wasn't a big fan of Sad Mark Lee. He'd known the guy for all of...fifteen minutes, and had the strongest feeling that if he were watching this from the outside, he'd confidently ask himself to step aside for a moment to have a brief word about what the fuck was wrong with him, making this nice boy upset. Then again, it wasn't his fault, nor was it Mark's, that they were both there feeling unprepared for the situation. He decided he'd redirect the blame where it belonged, on his two friends who he suspected were probably not far off, watching them as they sat. And he decided that Mark Lee, who'd been a Journalism major, and worked for his two best (title under examination) friends at the startup he'd had to walk away from, was kinda...pretty damn cute, and more than likely worth treating to a meal that didn't suck.

"Mark," he said, daring to reach across the small table and pat the--he was assuming--younger man's fingers, "I didn't know you'd be here. But that was only because those two busy body dumbasses knew that if they tried to set me up for a date, I probably wouldn't agree to it. Which has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me being stubborn and assuming I'm too busy, and not wanting to expend the energy on the off chance of meeting someone new and liking them."

"I get that," Mark replied, picking at the loose corner of his menu and sighing.

Johnny nudged his hand again. "However, I am here, and I think...you seem like a person worth getting to know. Who also, I will say, happens to be pretty cute. If that's...not too forward of me." 

Looking up slowly, Mark blinked those round eyes at him, a dust of pink on his cheeks, only confirming Johnny's admission. Cute. "Oh man, really? No that's...not too forward it's...haha, wow, I'm kinda embarrassed. You mean that?"

God dammit. He meant it even more, now. Johnny laughed. He was going to kill his friends. They were right, and he hated it, and he was warming to Mark Lee faster than an egg on a hot sidewalk. 

"I mean it. Hey, Mark?"

"Yeah?"  
  
"Do you like pizza?"

Mark nodded, enthusiasm back full force. "I really do."

"Great," said Johnny, "because I hate this godawful, bougie bistro. But there's a great pizza place not far if you want to go there instead...with me?"

The smile that crawled up the side of Mark's mouth and turned into a joyful laugh, scrunching Mark's nose and turning his eyes to crescents, had Johnny thinking one of the two of them had swallowed the sun. He wasn't sure which.

"Yeah, oh my god. I read through this whole menu and really thought I'd only drink mimosas. What the fuck is a beignet? I'm so hungry."

Johnny pushed his chair back and hopped up, twisting one leg then the other back over the fence and offering Mark Lee a hand to help him, delightfully shorter, over as well. He paused and pulled a twenty from his wallet, leaning to tuck it under Mark's nearly empty glass, before gesturing a hand toward where he'd parked.

"My car's this way," he said, and Mark was quick to follow his lead.

As they crossed the street, Johnny unlocked the vehicle and rounded it to open the door for Mark, because you know? He felt like it. And it had the wonderful result of making Mark duck shyly into the passenger seat, muttering a tiny "thanks." As he went, Johnny hummed, and closed the door after him while holding his other hand up with his middle finger raised, in the general direction he thought was right. His pocket buzzed.

"Excuse me! Young man, that's very rude!" 

He turned in shock, finding an older woman fixing him with a powerful scolding look. 

"Oh no, ma'am," Johnny insisted, "I apologize. That wasn't meant at you at all. I'm...well, I'm trying my best to be on a date and do it right, and my supposed friends are very rudely spying on me."

"Are they now? From where?"

Johnny pointed down the street to a cafe with outdoor seating that sat not quite opposite the bistro, where he was mostly certain Taeyong and Yuta were hiding. Just going by the background noise from the call, and the fact that he'd heard Taeyong's ringtone from nearby the few moments before he actually answered.

"There, I believe. Very insensitive of them, putting pressure on my date like that. He's such a sweet guy, doesn't deserve it at all."

The lady hmphed in the direction of the cafe, and then smiled at Johnny. "Some friends. Well, go on then. Don't keep that sweetheart waiting. Have fun!" She patted Johnny's arm, and he thanked her, and as he rounded the car to climb into the driver's side, he couldn't stifle his laugh. She had put a hand on her hip and was shaking her head, and holding her other hand up to flip them the bird herself.

Johnny's pocket buzzed insistently, and the call clicked through to his car as he started the engine. Mark started when he saw Taeyong's caller ID register.

"Oh, Taeyong!" 

Johnny answered the call.

_"Johnny-fucking-Suh you--"_

"Enjoy your brunch, Taeyong. Tell Yuta I'll be needing my legs to take Mark on several more dates. Goodbye." He ended the call and pulled away from the curb, feeling positively _euphoric_ at how much Mark was laughing beside him.

Not long later, at a pizza joint where the tang of marinara in the air made Johnny's mouth water and a good glass of beer had Mark Lee's adorable, dark eyes sparkling, Johnny found he was enjoying himself immensely.

"So I was like, 'Johnny, you mean that Johnny? The tall hot one from the picture over the company name?' and Yuta was like, 'oh, you think he's the hot one out of us, do you?' and I just panicked and said I thought they were _all_ hot, which oh my god how could I just put my foot in my mouth like that, on my _second day._ It was so bad. Next thing I know, it's like three weeks later and they're cornering me against the water cooler, asking me if I really think their friend, and the cofounder of their business, who isn't there anymore, is attractive."

"Mark, quit while you still can," Johnny advised, through painful laughter. He could picture it all.

Mark slapped his hand on the table. "No _listen._ I'm like, holy shit, they're gonna fire me. They're gonna fire me for sexual harassment because I can't talk when I panic. But instead Taeyong tells me he wants me to go on a _date_ with their hot friend-slash-cofounder. And I'm like. Well sure but no, that's a joke isn't it? Only it _isn't_ which means they _must_ be testing me and oh god I am failing so badly."

"Oh Jesus. Mark."

"So I said I wasn't sure that was a good idea, and then Yuta said, 'what, you think we don't have good ideas?' and honest to god I asked myself if the water tank would be deep enough to drown in. 'Cause then I started thinking, 'what if they fire me because I _won't_ go out with their hot friend-slash-cofounder? I have never been so stressed in my life."

Wiping his tears on a napkin, Johnny figured anyone would feel the same if cornered by his two best, most horrible friends at the same time. And employed by them to boot. He took a sip of his beer, coughing slightly and still laughing. "I'm so sorry. They're really impossible once they set their minds to something. Honestly that's how the company even started."

"I've heard the story," Mark admits, "I'm...sorry you can't still be there. It's a really amazing place."

Johnny shrugged. "I've made my peace with it. If we're gonna blame anyone, it's my older brother for skipping out on the family and strong-arming me into inheriting the family business. But I don't anymore. I mean, I'm definitely not hurting so, can't complain. But anyway." Leaning forward over the remainder of their pizza, Johnny poked at Mark's cheek. "I think we need to address how many times you just said you think I'm hot."

Mark blushed deep red. "No, I don't think I said that."

"You did. Three times at least."

"Did I? I think you're mistaking journalistic embellishment for truth."

That pulled a laugh from Johnny, throwing him back in the booth with a laugh. God, they _were_ right. He did like this Mark Lee. 

"But yeah um, just in case they do decide to fire me for this, maybe put in a good word? As a cofounder." 

Johnny grinned. "Mark, I think they're more likely to give you a raise. Even if they are bastards for making you wonder if your entire career was on the line, just because they wanted to get my sorry ass out on a date. If they do decide to fire you, just come to me. I know a guy in HR. Because I hired him." 

Mark's smile scrunched his nose cutely again, and Johnny felt himself melt a little more, and then Mark's smile softened further.

"So...but like, is that the um, would that be the only reason I would see you again, Johnny?"

Johnny's laugh settled and he pulled himself to sit up straight, clearing his throat and squaring his shoulders to look Mark directly in the eyes. 

"Mark Lee," he said, "I don't know if you missed me saying this in the car, and maybe I was being a little hasty and bold in the moment then, but I believe I recall saying I meant to take you on several more dates. And I want to confirm, I do mean that. If you would also like to continue, uh, going out with me. Dating."

"Dating?"

"Yes, dating. Because those idiots, whom I admittedly love, were annoyingly right, and I am finding that I like you quite a lot."

"Wow," breathed Mark, "I did not see this coming. But yeah, I mean, I really really do want to keep dating my bosses hot friend-slash-cofounder. You, Johnny."

And Johnny, well, maybe it wasn't the day he'd planned for, but he'd take that. He could be flexible. And he was looking forward to all kinds of dates with Mark Lee.

"So," he said, leaning in, "you _do_ think I'm hot, huh?"

**Author's Note:**

> hello i took a shower--even in these trying pandemic times, yes it's impressive--n when i got out i had this, in it's entirety. now so do u. have a great weekend goodbye.
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/ImJaeBabie)   
> or twt @imjaebabie


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